Monday, November 05, 2007

Russian March in Crimea

Crimea’s pro-Russian radicals on Sunday celebrated National Unity Day. The local Russian March failed to generate mass attendance, following injunctions by Simferopol and Sevastopol courts banning the scheduled rallies in the downtown area. No violence was reported.

Kaleidoscopic coverage:

…why did we — when they messed with our history, our human life (slogan reads: “No to whitewashing the OUN-UPA! Bandera and Shukhevych to the dustbin of history!”)…

…there’s only one question — the Russian question (slogan reads: “Make Russian an official language!”)…

….a thousand people are here, but a hundred, two hundred thousand more (banner reads: Russian Bloc Party)…

…[we are] one people, that we should be here together…the President of Ukraine banned this holiday (slogan reads: “Fourth of November — National Unity Day!”)…

…we are a mighty, formidable power! (slogan reads: “For the motherland! For Putin!”)…

…we can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that on the eve of the Russian national action, the Russian Marches (slogan reads: “Russian people, remember! Tsekov and Grach sold out the Constitution of Crimea and the Russian language. A Russian Duma for Crimea!”)…

…that is, to prohibit parades and rallies in the Simferopol city center in the very last minute (slogan reads: “Yushchenko and Yanukovych, where are our savings? Who stole our pension?”)…

…in unity is Russians’ power! In unity is Russians’ power! And that’s the main slogan of the Russian Bloc Party of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, in honor of National Unity Day! Hurrah! (slogan reads: “One law for all!”)...

13 comments:

Anonymous
said...

photos of march at Simferopol up at unian http://photo.unian.net/ukr/themes/5275

leaves u wondering what the youngsters will remember and how they will be imprinted with fighting for the Motherland. There is a section of teen-agers and young adults that have already been indoctrinated. Sigh. Kids these days. ;)

But I wonder about tomorrow's kids? No way would they go against the beliefs of baba and dido.

Most of the rally-goers in this gallery fit the description of homini Sovietici. Except for the skinhead-like Putin-bearer and those young kids (obviously dragged to the event as the captive audience).

>>Prosperous, stable societies can lack, by these lights, moral clarity and courage and are prone to cynical compromises or gullibility. Under totalitarianism the challenge is to fight evil (he paraphrases the British writer Melanie Phillips), and in free societies it is to see evil.

Touché! In the mid 90s, Kuchma traded the world's third-largest stockpile of nukes for a government of crooks who masqueraded as reformists, and Washington didn’t seem to notice.

And as for “genetic fear,” I consider it an apt metaphor for the Kremlin’s efforts in sustaining a cross-generational Leviathan state.

Aren't the participants guilty of breaking multiple laws and statutes?????? In another country mass arrests, etc. (and they say that they live in fear in Ukraine?). In Ukraine they will be photographed/ interviewed by the media, end up on talk shows, etc. and as with Symenenko's calls for the creation of a 'left front' be lauded by certain special interest groups and their media cohorts.

How close can one skate to flirting with "revolution" and not face any consequences? free speech vs protecting the state

"First Secretary of Lviv regional department of the Communist Party Oleksandr Kalynyuk believes that current events in Ukraine are the sign of a soon revolution."http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2007/11/5/9330.htm

For communists, freedom fighting stops the day they come to power. By letting Communist Party bosses off the hook, as opposed to subjecting them to policy of lustration, Ukraine veered off on a path of oligarchization.

Acting as a sponge for the homo Sovietici vote, the communists converted their voters’ nostalgia to solid waste, a fertilizer that nourished grabitization. Now that the oligarchs’ plantations are ripe, the communists’ kolkhozes are shriveling.

Nature takes its course. Soviet folks are dying. Still, as a result of this secret oligarcommunist love affair, millions of post-Soviet folks ended up in the gutter. These are young folks, a potential communist electorate.

To stay in power, both communists and oligarchs rely on fooling large numbers of poor people.

The Clinton administration cold-shouldered Ukraine until the third-largest nuclear power joined the NPT. A stream of thank-you IMF loans followed, and Kuchma used them as pain killers to quietly streamline grabitization. The bottom line: By selling our nukes, Kuchma effectively bought himself the license to nuke Ukrainians out of their public property.

Washington’s policy toward Ukraine can be traced to Moscowcentric guys like Strobe Talbott, who happens to be Clinton’s buddy. Add Condoleezza Rice — and her earlier misconceptions about Ukraine, as evident in the infamous Chicken Kiev speech she drafted — and you get the full picture.

Colin Powell is one of the few people in the two Bush administrations whom I consider pro-Ukrainian. But they set him up with a fabricated WMD report, didn’t they?

I came to see Bill Clinton deliver his speech at Mykhailivska Ploshcha (Square) here in Kyiv on June 5, 2000. By that time, Clinton had decided to assume a low profile on Kuchma’s “bold and farsighted leadership.” Instead, he cautioned: “I am an American, not an Ukrainian. I cannot tell you how to build your future.” He also cited Taras Shevchenko: “We must not give up. We must keep on fighting. Boritesya poborete.”

I hope you didn't take what I said as anykind of dig at ya! It was just to underscore the breathtaking indifference of the likes of Clinton, Talbot, Bush, etc.

For a long time I believed that the powers-that-be would step in once they "found out" what was going on. I know better now.

I'm also learning that on a more microscopic, personal level. But it's quite fun because I'm running into folks like you in the process. ;-) It's the old "razom nas bahato" idea.

Interesting that you feel you need to learn more about your Canadian audience. I must say, there is much to learn. Even Canadians for the most part have no idea it is there, and even those who do have no idea of its magnitude. It's kind of like gold in the ground waiting to be mined...

At least, that's how I see it! With social networking, I feel like I've just stumbled on a motherlode and am now madly scrambling to learn some clever mining techniques before the guys with the big machinery come along and trip over me!